


Penance

by soldierwitch



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dissociation, F/M, Gen, POV Clarke Griffin, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-09-24 11:41:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldierwitch/pseuds/soldierwitch
Summary: Monty told them to do better and that's what Clarke plans to do. Atone. For her sins against herself, her friends, and her loved ones. They've been given another chance, and she no longer wants to be washed in blood and death. But Earth II has challenges that she could have never prepared for and though her and Bellamy are working to repair what broke between them, a secret she's carrying threatens to draw them apart once again. They say survival isn't fair but neither is sacrifice and Clarke has experience with both.





	1. Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you for checking out my season 6 fic. Shooting for a multichapter this time. I'd like to thank my friend Angela (@merrysansas over on tumblr) for being my beta. Your help made me feel so much more confident. Thank you for being my cheerleader!

On the Ark, Clarke used to go to the observation window whenever she needed to think. Staring at Earth with its crystalline, blue waters and wispy, white clouds helped to clear her mind. She would imagine what Earth was like in the 21st century when gaseous fumes were overheating the planet. And she’d try to picture the 20th century when industrialization drove humanity toward innovations that were ahead of anything that had been invented before.  Untangling history from the distance of her time was like unknotting a ball of string. She always knew she’d end up with a single line, long and stretched thin but orderly and linear. Her history teacher had taught her how and why they arrived on the Ark with the added support of the station’s archives.

At 16, Clarke could tell you about the decisions the world’s global powers made that led to nuclear warfare. She could explain rising tensions due to globalization and capitalism.  She could tell you why oligarchies masquerading as democracies clashed with populist, fascistic organizations; and why dictatorships rose to prominence. In hindsight history was simple but that was not a concept Clarke had grasped back then. No, history was as clear to her as the moves on her and Wells’ chessboard. Black and white. Heroes and villains. Clinical, detached, and strategic. Unbound by emotion. People made decisions based on their prejudices and biases, and yes, sometimes out of love and anger but history has a way of sapping the emotion from the facts. You are what the past says you are. What you do and what you say matters only as far as how history writes it down.

At 16, Clarke thought she knew this. It was a truth she’d had accepted nearly without question because history is fixed. There were words upon words upon words about what the world had been like before her time. She could access them whenever she wanted to just with a few taps of her fingers. And then her dad was floated for having the courage to tell the truth when the Council didn’t want to listen. And her mother authorized her confinement and sent her hurtling down to Earth with 99 other delinquents. It would take Clarke months to realize that the girl she was burned in the planet’s atmosphere on her way to the ground. She wasn’t lost and she wasn’t gone; she was etched into the past. A relic of a time when the only grey in her world were the walls of her home and the lead tip of her pencil. Earth’s Clarke lived in grey. Lexa had once referred to her as iron-forged. Molded from the flames into a woman who could command death with a word.

See the thing about distance is that it lacks power, and Clarke had only known history from the comfort of her books. Earth’s curse was immediacy. Suddenly decisions were hers to make; consequences were hers to bear. In the lofty heavens where the Ark called home that was not the case, at least not for her. There is a history now wound tight in the blood of her mistakes and it is written across the bodies of those she’s lost and in the minds of those she loves. She doesn’t know how to begin unwinding the mess she’s made. One would think that chaos of one’s own creation would have a starting point that leads to its end, but Clarke doesn’t know when the grey turned into shadows only that it waxed and waned like a tide threatening to drown her. The shadows engulf her again as she stands before another observation window, staring down at another planet, 133 years between the girl she was and the woman she became.

“We need to make a decision.”

“I know, Bellamy,” Clarke says, her gaze still trained on the planet beneath them. It’s like Earth but not. Looking at it is like being unmoored. They have no history of this place, no archives to consult. Clarke mostly deals in things she knows, and she has no knowledge of this planet beyond what she can see. Its clouds are wispy and white; it has crystalline, blue waters; there is a luminescent, green substance running like a river in its southern hemisphere, and the planet orbits twin stars. All she’s ever known is the Sun and an Earth she could read about and understand. What she has now is a video from Monty and Harper that’s told her more about what she’s lost than what she’s gained.

“Clarke.”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. I need you to come here...please.”

Clarke does as Bellamy asks, tearing her gaze away from the enigma that’s been presented as a gift to them. Looking at him is like staring at a time-faded map. He is soft and creased in places that are familiar to her. But he has also been rubbed raw by a grief that she can only relate to through the pain of the absence of their friends not in the intensity of knowing them and loving them as family for six years. She realizes then that the decision they need to make is an easy one for him and a difficult one for her.

“We should wake your family,” Clarke says, eyes flitting between Bellamy and Jordan’s. “We decided to enter cryosleep as a group and that’s how we should handle what to do next.”

“What about Madi,” Bellamy asks.

“I’ll worry about Madi.”

“Clarke--”

“I’m not waking her up,” she says, voice rising. “We’re not on Earth anymore, and I can’t protect her if I don’t know anything.”

“We,” he says. “ _We_ can’t protect her if we don’t know anything. I wasn’t asking you to wake her up; I was asking you when do you think we should?”

Clarke deflates at Bellamy’s question. She’d thought that the wound his betrayal had inflicted healed when she decided to forgive him. But there it is throbbing and aching, no longer fresh but still making its presence known. Her daughter is Commander, and she’d swallowed that dagger in order to rectify her mistake in leaving him behind to his own fate, but it’s beginning to work its way back up her throat as she thinks about the unknown.

When she doesn’t answer, Bellamy suggests they wait until they’re able to determine if they can even land on the planet. If they can, they’ll wake Madi when they’ve found a suitable place to settle. If they can’t, they’ll revisit the question.

All Clarke can do is nod her agreement.

“Should I make myself scarce,” Jordan asks. “This is a lot to take in and maybe adding me in right off the bat would be a little too much.”

“No,” Clarke and Bellamy say at the same time.

Bellamy clears his throat and gestures for Clarke to go first.

“This is your home, Jordan,” she says. “You shouldn’t have to hide in it no matter the reason.”

Jordan is neither Octavia nor Madi, but Clarke can’t shake the feeling that if she were to let him hide himself away that he’d find the same shame in it that they did. Being alone like that even for a handful of minutes can change a person. He would always remember that when it came time to wake his parents’ family that he was shunted to the side like a secret to be prepared for and revealed gradually. Jordan had only ever been his parents’ joy, and Clarke has no plans on undermining the love that that status entailed. Arriving late to his life hasn’t affected the protective instinct she feels for him. He was Monty and Harper’s and they entrusted him to her and Bellamy. There is nothing that she won’t do for him and there is nothing that she won’t spare him from.

“They’ll be a little freaked out,” Bellamy admits. “But it’ll pass and then they’ll be happy to meet you and get to know you just like we are. Promise.”

“Okay,” Jordan says, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Let’s wake up some sleeping beauties then.”

Jordan is a perfect mix of his parents. He smiles easily and when he does it’s like seeing Harper smiling back at you. And he sounds just like Monty, calm and soft like water lapping at the shore. But it’s Jasper that Clarke sees in him now. The mischief is missing from his smile, but Clarke suspects it’s lying dormant. The thought makes her smile, too, as she watches Jordan terminate cryostasis on the pods holding his family. She carries it with her as they make their way down the hallway to wait for the others to wake.

Raven stirs first.

Clarke can see the uptick of Raven’s lips forming into a smile and as she does her own smile begins to fade. Unease starts to take its place. The feeling increases as she watches Raven swing her legs over the side of her pod before noticing the three of them standing in the room’s entrance way.

“Figures,” Raven mutters with a snort. “You two are never to be outdone. First awake in ten years. Though I don’t recognize you. Are you one of Diyoza’s or Madi’s?”

Before Jordan can answer, a loud groan rings through the room.

Raven rolls her eyes but doesn’t turn around. “Can it, Murphy. Clarke and Jackson patched you up before we put you out. You’re not dying, so stop acting like it.”

“Cryosleep doesn’t exactly heal wounds, Raven,” he grits, sitting up, hand going to his bandaged shoulder.

Clarke watches as Emori walks quickly to his side not bothering to acknowledge anyone before she checks him over with her eyes. Satisfied, Emori takes a seat on Murphy’s pod, her shoulder brushes his.

Echo’s the last to wake. Her eyes take in everyone in the room, lingering on Jordan, before resting on Bellamy.

Willing herself not to look at Bellamy’s reaction, Clarke resists the urge to swallow. Her throat is dry, her ears are beginning to buzz but it’s a simple chemical reaction to her nerves. No one can hear the quickening pace of her heartbeat and this will pass as all things do.

Echo smiles and Clarke sees Bellamy’s answering one from the corner of her eye.

“Jordan, why don’t you introduce yourself,” Clarke says, needing a distraction from the building tension within herself which no one else seems to be experiencing. None of them have been unwelcoming to her these first few minutes into their reunion and yet she feels like an outsider just like she did the first time they were all united.

“Oh. Right,” he says stepping forward. “Forgive me, this is only the second time I’ve ever introduced myself. I’m hoping it gets easier.”

“You’re doing fine,” Bellamy assures him with a pat on the back.

Jordan smiles at him like a sunbeam before returning his focus to the group. “Anyway, I’m Jordan, Harper and Monty’s son.”

The news lands for them pretty much like it had for Clarke and Bellamy with a near audible thunk and then Murphy laughs, wincing all the way through it. “Leave it to Monty and Harper to skip cryosleep to fuck,” he says.

Jordan goes pink, his face screwing up in a mix of disgust and amusement. “Not exactly the reaction I was expecting.”

“Ignore him,” Emori says, smacking Murphy on the back of his head for being crude. “We all do.”

“Hey,” Murphy says, rubbing at his head. “Injured party here. Be nice.”

“It’s been more than ten years,” Echo states as a matter of fact not a question.

Jordan nods. “More like nearly a century and a half.”

“Where are Monty and Harper,” Raven asks, her gaze flicking from Jordan to Bellamy.

Clarke sees the moment she knows and all the tension she’d been holding onto releases in the wake of Raven’s grief.

“No,” Raven whispers once and then again. “That’s not...that wasn’t the plan!”

“Things didn’t,” Jordan trails off, fidgeting with his fingers. He takes a shaky breath in to speak again, but Clarke beats him to it. _He already had to do this once. He shouldn’t have to do it again_ , she thinks. _It’s my turn_.

“Monty and Harper waited the ten years,” Clarke begins. “And then”--she sighs --“And then they waited another 18, but Earth didn’t show any signs of life, so they started working on the Eligius III mission file. Monty cracked it after 30 years. He found the planet they’d been looking for and set us on a course for it. That was 75 years ago.”

“I don’t understand,” Raven says, wiping a tear from her eye with her fist. “They could have woken me. They could have woken Emori. Why didn’t they wake us up?”

“I-I don’t know,” Clarke answers. “I don’t know.” She wants to step forward, to say something that could make this better but there’s nothing to say, and she and Raven have never been good at grieving together.

“Dad always said that he and Mom made a choice,” Jordan says placing a hand on Clarke’s shoulder before letting it drop down by his side. “You chose to sleep. They didn’t want to take that from you, and they didn’t know when, if ever, they’d crack Eligius III’s file.”

“So, they just decided to die then,” Murphy says furious, hopping down from his pod to walk toward Jordan. “They just decided leave _us_ , leave _you_?”

Bellamy shakes his head. “Murphy.”

“What, Bellamy,” he asks, grief pushing his anger into a sneer. “We go to sleep for what feels like five minutes and there’s this guy here telling us our friends are dead and he’s their son. Oh, and let’s not forget Earth is _gone_ and we’re supposed to what? Cheer about some shiny new planet we know nothing about and go exploring like we didn’t just sleep through Monty and Harper’s entire lives!”

“John!”

He shakes off Emori’s hand. “No, this is fucked. It’s so...it’s so fucked.”

“Yes, it is,” Clarke says before stepping forward in front of Jordan like a shield. “But that’s not on Jordan.”

“Are you saying it’s on you then, Clarke?”

Clarke blinks, stunned as she takes in the fury lighting Raven’s eyes as tears fall down her cheeks. “What?”

“If you’d killed McCreary when you had the chance, Monty and Harper would be alive and Earth wouldn’t be a dead rock we once called home!”

“Raven,” Bellamy growls a warning.

“It’s true,” she continues. “You’d think with all the blood on her hands she wouldn’t have hesitated. If she had done the job like she’s always done then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Clarke hears Bellamy yell, “Enough,” but it sounds like it’s coming from underwater. She tells herself not to panic that grief does this to people. It causes them to point fingers and place blame. But still there’s a voice in the back of her mind that agrees with Raven. This is her fault. She doesn’t know why she didn't just shoot McCreary. Maybe she didn’t believe anyone would blow up the only viable land on Earth. Maybe she thought he was bluffing. She doesn’t remember much from that moment because it felt like time sped up between breaths. One second he was threatening to release the missile; the next a timer was flashing before her eyes, and they had precious minutes to get everyone on board the ship.

“You know what,” Raven says, wiping her cheek on her shoulder. “I don’t get you. She leaves you to die and even now you’re still coming to her rescue.”

“Raven, knock it off.”

“No,” she says, getting down from her pod. “It’s time you face some facts. Clarke. Left you. To die.”

Bellamy comes to stand by Clarke, but she doesn’t look at him until he says, “I think we’re even on that front, Raven.”

Clarke’s head whips in his direction so fast she registers a twinge of pain. An involuntary, “Bellamy,” slips from her lips in a whisper.

Raven is just as stunned. She takes a step back before recovering. “That wasn’t the same,” she says, grit like gravel stuck in her throat.

“Different circumstances, same end result,” he says.

“Except Clarke didn’t die,” Echo says, her surprise matching Raven’s as she looks between Bellamy and her.

“And neither did I,” Bellamy says in a softer tone than he had used with Raven.

“You could have though,” Echo says, brows furrowing as she folds her arms. “You didn’t see her. She thought you were dead, and she was fine with it.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Clarke interjects. Tears threaten to burn her eyes with the memory of the week she spent living minute to minute, pushing forward, so she wouldn’t have time to stop and think. If she thought about what she did then she’d be lost. She knew this even as Madi poked and prodded at the wound Bellamy had inflicted on her heart. A wound similar to the one she’d left him except she thought she’d have to live with hers much longer than he’d have to live with his if Octavia stuck true to her word.

“But this isn’t about me,” she continues. A coldness begins to settle over her. A defense mechanism, one she’s deployed more often than she’s liked in her life. They don’t have time for any of this, to hurt and be hurt. It’s not productive; it’s wasteful, and it’s not what Harper and Monty wanted for them. “Place blame where you like but either way we still have a planet we know nothing about which means we have work to do.”

Raven laughs bitterly. “Always pushing forward. Sometimes I forget death barely phases you.”

Clarke flinches, but it’s the only outward reaction that she allows to show. “Believe what you want, Raven.”

“Raven,” Bellamy growls again. “Look,” he says, pinching his nose before continuing. “Monty wanted us to do better, so that’s what I’m going to do. Are you with me?”

“Always,” Raven says, her eyes stray to Clarke. “Jury’s still out on whether I’m with her.”

“Raven, I swear--”

“It’s okay, Bellamy,” Clarke says, trying to keep her fingers from balling at her side. She knew that it would be like this when she told him they should wake his family. The tension she was prepared for, it’s the spite that caught her off guard. “I’ll be in the control room when you’re ready.”

“We’re not done here.”

“You’re not, Raven, but I am,” she says, shaking her head at Bellamy when he reaches for her. She looks at the group watching her. Echo has eyes only for Bellamy, Raven looks defiant, Emori sad, and Murphy’s anger is slowly dissolving into despair. Clarke turns and walks away leaving Jordan and Bellamy to grieve with their family.

The tears come as Clarke walks back to the control room. This ship was just a means to an end for her; a way of slipping through death’s clutches. But for Monty, Harper, and Jordan it’s been home. Once again she’s missed out on her friends’ lives because of choices, but this time they weren’t her own. She’d waited six years to spend two weeks on the same planet as her friends only to lose them again. It was a blink of an eye for her; one moment they were in existence and then the next they weren’t. But for them, they had lived decades. They raised a child and grew old together. They leaned on one another; they were there for each other. Clarke didn’t get to live any of it with them like she hoped she would. Just because her hurt is different from their family’s doesn’t mean she doesn’t hurt at all.

“Clarke, wait up!”

Her eyes widen at the hail, her hands go quickly to her face to wipe away any stray tears.

Jordan jogs around her, turning to walk backward as he speaks. “So that was rough,” he says, making Clarke huff a laugh.

“You think,” she asks.

He pretends to ponder over it, humming as he puts his finger to his chin. “I know.”

Clarke huffs another laugh before sobering. “Shouldn’t you be back there though,” she asks. “Getting to know your family.”

Jordan looks at her puzzled and stops walking. “You keep saying that as if you aren’t a part of that family.”

She opens her mouth to speak and then closes it again not really sure where to start.

“I mean I get the whole separated for six years thing, but Mom and Dad talked about you just as much as they talked about everyone else.”

Clarke remains silent though this time in astonishment.

“Dad wasn’t kidding when he said he took a page out of your parenting book.”

“I...um,” she starts before landing on, “It’s complicated, Jordan.”

“Not really,” he says. “They’re my family. You’re my family. We’re all...a family. We’ll be complete when Madi wakes up. And I guess Octavia? I’m not really sure on that one.”

“That simple, huh,” Clarke asks in lieu of indulging her curiosity. _What did they tell him about me?_

“Probably not, but I can hope.”

The rest of their short walk is spent quietly, but it’s companionable with Clarke sneaking peeks at Jordan out the corner of her eye.

“I know this is weird for you,” he says once they enter the control room. “But it’s just as weird for me, so like I’m sorry if you catch me staring. I’m used to seeing you crusted over with ice.”

“It’s not weird.”

Jordan raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, it’s weird,” Clarke admits. “But a good weird. You could never be a bad weird, Jordan.” _You’re my friends’ son_.

He fist pumps. “Hey, hey. My first compliment not given to me by my parents. The bar was low, but I’ll take it.”

Clarke chuckles. Jordan distracts with humor the same way Jasper used to before Earth became too much for him. She makes a vow to herself never to let that happen to Jordan and never to be the cause of it if it does.

“I wonder how long they’ll be down there,” Jordan mumbles to himself, flopping down in the captain’s chair.

The mechanical swish of the door opening answers his question as Raven walks in with Shaw at her side.

“Let’s see this video,” she says, not sparing a glance toward Clarke as she stops in front of Jordan.

Echo, Emori, and Murphy file in after her.

Bellamy brings up the rear. His eyes find Clarke’s almost immediately as he looks up from the floor, his hands are in his pockets. He gives her a weak smile that she finds herself returning as he comes over to her.

“You okay,” he asks.

“No,” she answers, instantly regretting the show of honesty. Now’s not about her, and he always used to do this, worrying about her before worrying about himself. “You don’t have to check on me, Bellamy.”

He shrugs, turning around to face the room like her. “Clarke, I’m going to remind you of something you used to say. The only way we’re going to get through this is if we do it together.”

Clarke tries not to hear the slam of a door closing or feel the yank of chains against her wrists, but she knows that Bellamy sees her wince.

“I know the last time I said that to you I didn’t honor it--”

“Bellamy--”

“And I’m sorry for that.”

Clarke’s eyes prick, but she doesn’t look at him as she says, “I’m sorry, too. For leaving you.”

“Let’s not do that again, okay?”

She wants to ask if he means leaving him, or betraying her, or betraying each other, maybe all three but she lets those questions sit like a rock in her stomach.

“Okay.”

“Clarke, I need you to look at me when you say that.”

That’s the second time he’s said he’s needed something from her and, like the last, she relents.

“Okay,” Clarke says again, willing herself not to turn and hide from his searching gaze. She’s withheld things from him, lied, but when he looks at her as he’s doing now the only thing she can do is be open. Let him see her even if she doesn’t really want be seen.

“Okay,” he repeats.

When the observation window opens, they both shuffle to opposite sides of the room. Monty’s voice filters into Clarke’s focus, reminding her to do better and be better this time around. _I promise_ , she thinks as she looks again at the planet he’d found for them. _Or I’ll die trying_.

“So that’s Earth the sequel,” Jordan says once his parents’ video comes to a close.

“More like Earth II,” Murphy says, stepping closer to the window. “Bigger and badder than the first.”

Jordan shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. It was before my time.”

Murphy smirks at him over his shoulder. “I like you, kid.”

“Back at you, old man.”

Murphy feigns injury before turning back to the window.

Jordan catches Clarke’s eye and holds up two fingers and smiles wide.

She laughs at his antics, hiding her smile behind her hand.

“Not to interrupt this feel good moment,” Raven says drily. “But if we could focus on the problem at hand that’d be great.”

“You mean the stick up your ass, Reyes,” Murphy says, eyes still on Earth II.

“Watch it,” Shaw grits.

“Or what,” Murphy asks. He turns too quickly, causing him to wince. His hand goes to his shoulder. “We’ve known you all of a week, Shaw. Excuse me if I don’t take your opinion into account.”

“Well, maybe you’ll take my fist into account,” he says, stepping away from Raven’s side.

Raven catches his arm. “Stand down,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Bitching at each other is what Murphy and I do.”

“Yeah, Shaw, it’s what we do,” Murphy mocks.

Raven flips him off as she gently shoos Jordan out of his chair, so she can take over. “I really only need Shaw and Emori right now. The rest of you can be useful by getting lost. Jordan, you’re welcome to stay, give us a rundown of the ship and whatever skills you have.”

“Uh,” Jordan starts, a little lost for words before looking to Clarke and Bellamy. “Sure,” he says once they nod at him, twin smiles of encouragement on their faces.

Clarke casually ignores Bellamy’s glance toward her. She knows that he probably wants to discuss their next steps, but she’s also seen the way Echo’s been looking at him. Searchingly almost like something isn’t adding up for her and that’s just not something Clarke wants to unpack right now.

“Murphy,” she says, catching his attention. “Let’s get that bandage changed.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“She’s nobody’s captain, Murphy.”

Clarke lets the comment roll off her shoulders without a word. “Medbay. Five minutes,” she says, before the door slides close behind her.

\----

When Murphy enters the medbay, Clarke is sitting on one of the chairs, a medkit rests on her lap. She signals to the chair in front of her. “Please sit and carefully remove your injured arm from its sleeve.”

“I know the drill, Clarke,” he says rolling his eyes.

Clarke clears her throat and busies herself with pulling out the items she’ll need to redress Murphy’s wound and places the kit on the floor near her feet.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she says as a means of breaking the tension. To her own ears it sounds wooden, it probably sounds worse to Murphy, but still she tries. “Monty and Harper were good friends.”

“What are you sorry for,” Murphy asks, pushing half his shirt up and off his shoulder as gently as possible, hissing as he does so. “It was your loss, too.”

“It’s not the same,” she says, checking over his wound before she begins cleaning it. “You knew them better than I did.”

“A loss is a loss, Clarke,” he says. “Bellamy knew you better than all of us, doesn’t mean we didn’t lose you, too, after Praimfaya. We handled it better, but we lost you just the same.”

Clarke freezes at his comment, her gaze finds his. “What?”

Murphy continues on as if the world isn’t starting to shift beneath Clarke’s feet. “I mean we all expected it. I was pretty sure it would have been the same for you if Bellamy had been the one left behind but...not so much anymore.”

She reaches for the adhesive bandage, tears it open, and slaps it on over his wound, her touch not as careful as it had been.

“Ow, Clarke,” Murphy says, jerking his shoulder back.

“Sorry,” she mutters, picking up fresh dressing to wrap his arm. _Do they all think I’m heartless_ , she wonders.

Murphy warily moves closer but nonetheless lets Clarke redress his wound. “Why did you leave him anyway?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Clarke?”

“You already know the answer to that question,” she says, deflecting.

Murphy shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I know what Bellamy told me. I want to hear it from you. There’s two sides to every story. Three if you count the truth.”

Clarke secures Murphy’s dressing and passes him a sling. “He gave Madi the chip,” she says, leaning down to pick up the medkit. She stands and walks across the room to put the kit away, putting distance between herself and Murphy’s questioning.

“Okay,” Murphy says turning around on his chair to continue facing Clarke even with her back turned to him. “Your side matches his, so what’s the truth?”

“That _is_ the truth,” Clarke says, opening a glass cabinet and sliding the medkit on one of the shelves. Her task is done. All she has to do is shut the door and turn around but that would mean facing Murphy, and she doesn’t think she can do that just yet. Instead, she turns her focus to the other items on the shelves before her. Clarke begins to shuffle them around, ordering things how she preferred on the Ark and then on Earth.

“No,” he insists. “That’s what happened. Bellamy gave Madi the chip, and you left him to die. But I want to know why? 

“I told you--”

“Clarke, cut the bullshit.”

“Why do you care, Murphy,” Clarke asks, finally shutting the glass door to the cabinet and turning toward him. She feels exposed like this like he can see every vulnerability laid bare for him. It’s not a feeling she wants to grow accustomed to, and it’s not one that she appreciates so soon after dealing with Raven’s temper.

“I care because the Clarke Griffin I knew would have never left Bellamy, of all people, to die at the hands of his crazy ass sister.”

“He made a choice, so did I.”

“See that right there,” Murphy says, pointing his finger at the curl of her lip. “You’re angry, Clarke. I get the Madi thing; I do, but it’s more than that. What did he do?”

“Murphy,” Clarke says, gripping the counter beneath her hands. “I don’t want talk about this.”

“Don’t make shutting people out a habit, Clarke. Trust me, that’s how you lose them.”

“I’m not the one who shut someone out,” she says forcefully though she didn’t mean to say anything at all.

“Bellamy shut you out?”

“How else do you think he got Madi to take the chip,” Clarke asks bitterly. She folds her arms across her body for protection, resentment slinks back into her frame and into her words. “I told you. Bellamy made a choice, and now I’m the one who has to live with it.”

“His choice saved us.”

“No, it saved _you_ ,” Clarke says, words sliding past her defenses at the memory of one of the nightmares she had for six years coming to life before her eyes. “His _family_ . _” It damned mine._

“Clarke.”

Her eyes, like Murphy’s, snap to the entrance of the Medbay. They widen in horror at the sight of Bellamy standing in the doorway looking lost for words.

All three of them stand in silence, a triangle of tension.

Murphy’s the first to speak, clearing his throat, he says, “Well, now that the truth is out, I’m gonna go. Three’s a crowd,” and promptly exits, giving Bellamy a sideways glance as he goes.

“I thought we were moving past this,” Bellamy asks, stepping fully into the room.

“We are.”

“Doesn't sound like it.”

“It doesn't matter how it sounds, Bellamy,”  Clarke says, desperately searching for the walls she’d put up regarding this issue, but she can’t compartmentalize when she’s this upset and the object of her ire is standing a few feet away.  “It only matters what I'm telling you, and I am telling you we're moving past it.

“Right,” he says, skeptically.

“Yes, right,” Clarke says, firmly. “It's not like we have a choice in the matter anyway.” _Not if I want to keep you in my life. Not if I want to be by your side like I thought I'd get the chance to be again._

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means we need each other far more than we need our anger.”

“I'm not angry with you.”

Clarke scoffs. His shoulders are tight and his jaw is clenched. He has yet to cross the room to bridge the gap between them and his arms are crossed.

“I'm not.”

“Just because you push it down and away doesn't mean it's not there, Bellamy.”

“Fine,” he says, uncrossing his arms and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Then I'm trying not be angry with you. Are you satisfied?”

“No,” Clarke, says petulantly. “I'd rather not be angry at all.”

“That makes two of us.”

Clarke leans against the counter and puts her head in her hands, sighing. “This was much easier when we were kids.”

“What was?”

“Forgiveness,” she says, looking back at Bellamy.

He nods. “Sometimes,” he admits. “But not every time.”

“I am sorry,” Clarke says. “I know your family doesn’t think I am, but I--I am. I’m so sorry, Bellamy.”

“I know,” he says, making his way toward her. “Hey, I know, Clarke.”

“It hurt,” she says. The tears forming in her eyes start to blur his transition across the room. “It still hurts.”

Bellamy pulls her into his arms, her head gently plunks against his shoulder as she embraces him in return.

“We ever gonna stop hurting each other,” Bellamy asks, voice gone hoarse.

“God, I hope so, Bellamy.” _I don’t want to hurt you_ , she thinks. _I don’t ever want to hurt you._

:::PA crackles to life::: We found something. Come to the control room. Now.

Clarke and Bellamy slowly disentangle themselves.

Bellamy takes a few steps back though not before wiping a stray tear from Clarke’s cheek.

She flushes like her skin has never felt his touch before. As if she never dreamed of his calloused hands brushing the side of her face, her hands, her arms softly, kind, soothing like his voice during the most trying of times.

Clarke curses herself for her ridiculous reaction and hopes Bellamy hasn’t taken notice of it. “We better get going,” she says, ducking her head to hide her blush, shy and uncomfortable in its suddenness. She moves to side-step him, but before she can pass, he grabs her wrist, halting her movement.

“You’re my family, too,” he says. “You and Madi. I know you don’t trust that...don’t trust _me_ , but it’s the truth.”

There’s a part of Clarke that wants to assure him that she does trust him. That she never stopped. That everything is in the past, and they have a future they should be concentrating on, but she can’t. It’s what makes looking at him difficult. If she’s being honest with herself, Clarke’s been wary of Bellamy since the glow of his return faded from her eyes. He is at once familiar and not; the boy she knew and the man she doesn’t in so many similar and contrasting ways that she has yet to examine and analyze to her satisfaction. She trusted Madi with the Bellamy she knew--her partner, her friend--the man before her is not him, but he’s apologizing and what does it say about her if she can’t accept it?

Bellamy’s not the only who’s changed. She knows this. She’s sure that when he looks at her she’s a stranger in his eyes. Maybe even a ghost. Six years is a long time, and he thought she was dead. He built a whole life without her, and she nearly took that from him. But he’s still here. It doesn’t make sense to her.

“They’re right, you know,” Clarke says. “I did leave you.”

“I left you first.”

She sighs. “Bellamy, you had to. You didn’t have nightblood.”

“I’m not talking about that. I left you alone, Clarke. I left you because it was easier than having a difficult conversation. One that I wasn’t sure I would win, and one that I _needed_ to win. We both made mistakes, but I made mine first. That’s on me.”

Clarke takes in his earnest brown eyes, feels the absent-minded caress of his thumb against her wrist bone, so familiar, and says the only thing she can, “I was happy when you came home that hasn’t changed. And I was relieved when Echo told me you survived the gladiator pit. I would never want to live in a world that you’re not in. I just...I just didn’t know how to protect Madi and trust you at the same time. I made the only choice I thought I could.”

Bellamy nods. His hand slides down her wrist trailing electricity in its wake that makes Clarke shiver.

“Are you cold?”

“No,” Clarke says, tearing her gaze from his. “We better go. Raven hates calling people twice.”

“Are we good?”

“We're not bad,” she says with a half smile that Bellamy matches.

“It's a start.”

“Yeah.”

Together they leave the medbay, walking back to the control room in companionable silence, occasionally sneaking looks at one another just like she and Jordan had done but for entirely different reasons. A reassessment rather than an assessment. By the time they reach the room everyone else has arrived.

“Thank you for joining us,” Raven says, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “As I was explaining to everyone else, we found more encrypted files. It will take us some time, but we should be able to crack them. We’re hoping that they’ll include information on Earth II. We’re going to need specs on its atmosphere and land composition if we have any hope of figuring out if it’s even safe for us to attempt a landing on its surface.”

“Whatever we find will be centuries old,” she continues. “But it’s all we have. This ship isn’t equipped with the kind of tech we’d need to do the readings ourselves. We have a few satellite drones, but they were built to assist with mining on asteroids, the most they can do is provide us with imaging. It’s better than nothing but it still won’t be enough to go on.”

“How long will it take to decrypt the files,” Bellamy asks.

“Raven and I estimate a week or two,” Emori says. “But it really just depends on how much skill Jordan has in hacking.” She looks at him with a teasing smile, laughing slightly as he jumps to attention.

“I’ll do my best,” he says, his tone serious, solemn, and not at all like himself.

“Relax, kid,” Murphy says, throwing his good arm over Jordan’s shoulder. “It’s not like it’s life or death.”

Jordan blanches, face going white as he swallows hard.

“Murphy, stop scaring him,” Raven says. “You’ll do fine, Jordan.” She turns back to Bellamy and Clarke. “With us working on the files, and Monty's keylogger, it shouldn’t be long. I’m more worried about the radiation. Earth II is part of a binary star system. If the planet’s atmosphere is thick enough it may not be a problem. The people who came here centuries ago weren’t exposed to the kind of radiation we’ve all been exposed to thanks to living in space and on a radiated Earth. They needed the extra protection. Hopefully we don’t, but if the atmosphere isn’t thick enough--”

“We’ll worry about that if it comes to it,” Bellamy says, cutting her off.

Clarke feels him tense at her side. _Nightblood_ , she thinks. _Of cours_ e.

Before Raven can argue, Clarke speaks but she directs her words to Bellamy. “We need to worry about it now. If nightblood is the key to our survival then you can take it from me.”

“We’ll need more than one source,” Raven says.

“And you’ll have more than one,” Clarke states, silently asking for Bellamy’s support. “Once you take it from me first.”

“Clarke, the process will go faster if we--”

“We’re not waking Madi up,” Bellamy interjects, breaking eye contact with Clarke. “Clarke’s nightblood has been tested and proven. She survived six years on a radiation soaked planet. We’ll use hers. I’ll take the first transfusion, and we’ll go from there.”

Clarke nods, thanking Bellamy with a quick quirk of her lips before turning her focus back to the group.

“Heda should make the decision,” Echo says, stepping forward. “She leads. It should be her choice.”

“We’re not waking her up,” Bellamy reiterates. “Besides, Clarke already volunteered, so there’s no need to wake Madi.”

Echo looks between the two of them, eyes narrowing slightly. She looks like she’s trying to decipher something as if a recalculation needs to be made. It makes Clarke stiffen, her shoulders push back at the appraising gaze directed at her.

“When _are_ we going to wake her,” Echo asks, gaze shifting to Bellamy.

“When it’s safe,” Clarke says.

“And who decides when it’s safe?”

“I do,” Clarke says as if it’s obvious because it is to her, but it’s clearly not to Echo because the warrior bristles at her answer.

“Well, I don’t trust you,” Echo says folding her arms across her chest.

“You don’t have to trust her,” Bellamy says. “You just have to trust me.”

Taken aback, Echo’s arms fall to her side. Defiance seeps from her, replaced by a confusing mixture of emotions that Clarke can’t place. “Of course, I trust you.”

“Okay, then. It’s settled.”

“It’s not settled,” she insists. “Wanheda was willing to let us all burn to protect Heda. Who’s to say she won’t do it again?”

“We have all done things,” Bellamy says. “Things that we aren’t proud of but we did them for the people we love. _Clarke_ isn’t any different.”

“Why are you defending her?”

“Because Clarke isn’t going anywhere,” Bellamy says, looking down at Clarke before facing Echo again. “And neither are we. I don’t want to argue with you, but we’re going to have to find a way to co-exist. Okay?”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Echo.”

“Fine,” she says, relenting. “As long as she does what you say.”

Bellamy snorts. “Yeah, Clarke’s not good at that.”

Clarke resists the urge to roll her eyes at Bellamy's comment but starts to relax at the sound of his amusement. “I’m not going to do that again,”she says, assuring them as best she can. “But if we’re going to move forward, we can’t keep arguing about this, so if you have something to say just say it.”

“I have plenty to say,” Raven says. “But you’re right. We’re wasting time, so it’s in the past, but it’s not forgotten.”

“Okay,” Clarke says and waits for the others to speak but only Murphy does.

“You’re the one who taught me about second chances,” he says. “And you gave me one when no one else would. Stands to reason I should do the same.”

“Thank you.”

“No thanks necessary, Griffin. You’d do anything for your kid; I respect that.”

“So do I,” Emori says.

“Me, too,” Shaw adds.

A lightness fills Clarke at their words. What she did was wrong. She knows that but it’s nice that they understand why she did it. There’s no excuse and the reasons she had don’t sit right with her beyond protecting Madi, but it’s good to be understood, to not be treated like a pariah not fit to be in the same room as them.

“Still. Thank you.”

“No problem, Captain.”

Raven rolls her eyes. “She’s not even flying the ship, Murphy.”

“Technically, no one’s flying the ship,” Jordan says and then shrinks back when Raven glares at him.

“Aww, don’t be that way, Reyes,” Murphy says in a simpering voice. “You can be Pilot.”

“Fuck you.”

“I don’t think Shaw would appreciate that. Shaw, would you like to weigh in since that’s your thing?”

“Murphy, shut up,” he says, fiddling with something at the computer and directing Raven’s attention to what he accessed.

“Hmm...first, no. Second, lame. I really was expecting more.”

Shaw flips him off.

“That’s the spirit,” Murphy says with a wide smile which makes Jordan laugh and Murphy smile even wider.

Bellamy catches Clarke’s eye and shakes his head, he looks upward in exasperation causing Clarke to chuckle softly behind her hand. Neither of them notice Echo watching their exchange.

\----

Clarke sits cross-legged on the floor in front of Madi's pod. It's quiet in the cryo-chamber. Reminds her of Earth when it was just her and Madi. The sound of the artificial air filtration has replaced the distant sound of the waterfall they lived by but she relishes the moment nonetheless. Six years with just the two of them, it's rough adjusting to the noises and space of other people.

“Morning, Madi, breakfast time. Your favorite,” she says shaking her thermos. “Today we have another round of algae, so it's probably a good thing you're still asleep. I don't know if I could deal with your complaining...or your whining.”

She laughs.

“Anyway, we took a vote last night. We're sending a mission down to Earth II. The files we were able to decrypt look promising so do the images from the satellite drones. The planet is more land than water, but there are oceans. When everything is settled, and our people are safe, I'll take you to see the fluorescent green river near where we're landing. I think you'd like it. Maybe. If it's not radioactive. We'll have to be careful.”

Clarke turns her head at the sound of boots trudging down the hallway.

Bellamy stops in the doorway, his own thermos in hand. He looks sleep mushed, his hair unrulier than usual. He’s up enough to be mobile, but still not all the way ready to greet the day. “I thought I might find you here.”

“You find me here everyday,” Clarke says scooting down to make room for him on the floor.

“Not in the morning.”

“You’ve never come looking for me in the morning.”

“Because you’re usually in the Mess,” Bellamy says, claiming the spot next to her and leaning back on his hands. “You’re up before everybody else.”

“Not today,” she says looking back at Madi. “Slept late.”

“I see that. You telling her about the mission?”

Clarke pulls her leg up to her chest and places her chin on her knee. “Yeah,” she says on a sigh.

“She’ll be fine.”

“The only way I’ll know that for sure is if I’m with her.”

“Well, you decided not to wake her up, Clarke,” he says. “You can’t be in two places at once.”

“I know,” she replies, eyes tracing what features she can see of Madi’s. Her daughter looks like she’s resting. Like she’s hours away from waking on her own, but she’s not. She’s frozen in time. Suspended from reality which crawls past her minute by minute. Clarke supposes that the pang in her heart is as much about missing Madi as it is about guilt for choosing to live without her even though it’s only meant to be for a little while.  

“So what are you saying?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke says. “Before you came back, the longest I’d ever been away from Madi was a day, and it wasn’t by choice. I got caught in a storm and was forced to be apart from her. Now I’ve gone from a day to over a century in what feels like weeks to me. If I go on the mission to Earth II, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to come back.”

“Raven and Shaw said the likelihood of an entry rough enough to damage the dropship was less than 10%.”

“That means there’s still a chance that we’ll be stranded down there.”

“Which is why Raven and Jordan are staying behind just in case we need to figure out a plan B.”

She shakes her head. “And what if our comms don’t work and we can’t hail them? We tried radioing across frequencies for a week, no one answered. What if it’s because they can’t?”

Clarke knows what that’s like. She wants to tell Bellamy that she called him every day for six years, he never picked up. She wants to talk about how something as simple as not having a laser comm on the Ark prevented her from reaching him. How alone she felt even with her daughter tucked into her side. How she’d look up to the night sky praying that he was among the stars and clinging to every last ounce of hope she had with every breath she breathed. Clarke deals in facts. She ran through the odds over and over again arriving at the same conclusion. He and their friends were more than likely dead.

Her head tried to make her see reason, but her heart kept reminding her of all the times Bellamy had beat every odd thrown at him. And her heart had been right. He’d been late by over a year, but he’d shown up when she need him the most with her daughter safe and a plan. But this decision isn’t about her faith in him, it’s about throwing herself into a situation where she has no guarantee she’ll make it back to Madi. Science and calculations are never 100% foolproof. Human error is a factor, so are unforeseen events. If she stays on this ship then at least she knows if anything were to happen, she’d be with her daughter.

“Maybe I should stay here,” she says finally looking at him and then gasps.

Bellamy looks scared but in the way he used to when he had no plan and no direction, no bravado or bluster to push him on until he could arrive at the beginnings of what to do. Except, somehow it’s worsened with age. Panic lights his eyes so bright, she sits up.

“Hey, what…,” she reaches a hand out in the space between them, lets it brush his shoulder before dropping down to his wrist.

“I’m fine,” Bellamy says even though he’s clearly not. He dislodges her hand from his wrist when he brings his hands up to his face and rubs at it before standing. “I didn’t...I assumed you’d be coming with us. You never said that you weren’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” she says, looking up at him. “Bellamy, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I don’t know why I--nothing, Clarke. Let me know what you decide.”

“Hey,” Clarke says, scrambling to her feet as he turns to leave. “Talk to me.”

Bellamy releases a breath of air, his shoulders sag with the release, but he doesn’t look at her. “You should stay with Madi. We’ll be fine.”

 _We_ . A word that used to be reserved for them. What are _we_ going to do? What are _we_ going to say? Now when Clarke hears it, it’s like a line being drawn in the sand, and she’s on the opposite side of Bellamy. Separated, closed off, excluded from the definition. The sting of _we_ , the way it lands in her ears with a ring that threatens to start a headache, makes her want to agree with him. Half of her heart does already, but the other half, the part pushing for her to go to him, to ask if he really is fine with being separated again is the one she lets have control.

Clarke licks her lips and tries. “You told me that we need to be honest with each other. So, honestly, I’m scared, Bellamy.”

He turns to look at her.

“The last time I did this, I had years of Earth studies at my disposal. Skills that I had developed, information to lean on when I began to doubt. We’re flying blind now. This planet is Earth-like but it’s not Earth. We have no idea what to expect. We could die within minutes of opening the door. At least on this ship I have Madi, and I have her safety. And if I go, all I’ll be able to think about is what will happen to her if I die.”

Clarke looks down. “But if I don’t, all I’ll be able to think about is what if. What if something happens, and I’m not there? What if you need my help and you can’t reach me? I played that game for six years. What if they didn’t make it? What if they made it but something went wrong? What if they can’t come back? What if they don’t want to come back? What if I never see them again.”

“Clarke--”

“Honestly, I’ve been playing What If? for so long you’d think I’d be used to it, but I’m not. There is no good choice here, okay? I’ll be of more use on Earth II, but Madi is here. And, like you said, I’m not waking her up, so yeah, I have doubts. Lots of them. I don’t want to make the wrong decision; I’m tired of making the wrong decision.”

Bellamy opens his mouth and closes it. His eyes are glassy, and he’s fidgeting with his hands. He never used to do that, and he never used to look like he wanted to bolt from the room. He’s skittish, a description Clarke would have never used for Bellamy before and yet that’s what she sees now.

Slowly, she steps closer until her boots nearly touch his. “Please,” she says. “Talk to me.”

When Bellamy speaks it comes out in a rush like the words escaped from a cage deep inside him.

“I don’t want to say goodbye to you,” he says, but he isn’t looking at her as he says it. His eyes are cast upward and away as if not looking at Clarke can conceal the shudder that runs down his spine. As if she can’t hear how shaky his breath is or practically feel the tremors in his hands.

Clarke tells him to look at her and when he doesn’t, she cups his face between her hands until he’s forced to look.

“Talk to me,” she says, again.

Bellamy inhales sharply at the gesture, his hands cease their wringing and close into fists at his side. He shakes his head.

“So, I’m the only one who has to be honest, Bellamy?”

He takes her hands from his face, holding them tighter than he’s aware. “No,” he says, softly. “I just...I don’t want to make the wrong decision either.”

“What decision do you have to make,” Clark asks, confused.

Bellamy takes another shuddery breath in, eyes straying from Clarke’s. “Leaving you again.”

“Bellamy, we talked about this--”

“No matter how many times we talk about it, Clarke, I left. And now you’re saying I might have to do it again. I don’t--I don’t--want to--you don’t know what it was like. I don’t--I don’t want to do it again.”

“Okay,” she says, breaking Bellamy’s grasp on her hands, so she can cup his face again. “Okay.”

Clarke stands on her toes and brings his forehead to rest against hers. “Breathe, Bellamy,” she says. “I need you to breath for me." 

He shakes his head.

“Yes,” Clarke says. “Come on. Follow me.” She breathes in slowly and then exhales just as slow, repeating the action until they start breathing in sync.

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy says, once he’s calmed down.

“Don’t be,” she says. “Are you ready to talk to me now?”

“No,” he admits. “But I have to so…”

Bellamy steps out of Clarke’s hold.

“It’s selfish,” he starts. “Wanting you...on this mission. Madi’s here, and you’re right...we could die. I just know that I have to go to Earth II; It’s where I’m needed. But if I go, and you stay, I’ll feel like I left you when you needed me. And I--I know that that’s not true. That you’ll be fine. But it was true...the first time. And I feel like there’s--there’s no way I can make up for that. I mean...I can’t so whatever you want to do, whatever you choose that’s the right decision.”

“Bell--”

“It’s your choice,” Bellamy says stepping further away from Clarke. “Do what you think is best.”

He turns and walks away, thermos forgotten in his hurry.

Clarke worries her lip as she listens to the last echoes of his footsteps through the hall. “But I don’t know what’s best,” she whispers before walking back to Madi’s pod. She places her hand on the glass separating her from her daughter. “What do I do, sweetheart? What do I do?”


	2. Reunions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to chapter 2, everyone! I should have warned you last chapter, so I'm remembering to do it now. This fic, at times, is going to deal with mental health issues. As you noticed in chapter one, Bellamy panics. It's a personal headcanon of mine that he developed a panic disorder due to the trauma surrounding Clarke's perceived death. It will come up again and is a part of his character. Clarke also has mental struggles that will manifest in this fic. While this is not the focus of _Penance_ , it is important to me that these issues are explored and discussed honestly and sensitively. I will tag appropriately as the story progresses.
> 
> As always, eternal thanks to my friend, Angela, for being my beta.

The morning after her talk with Bellamy, Clarke waits in the Mess for him to arrive. She slept poorly and her nerves are on edge. If this were before, she would have marched down to his quarters--hair in disarray with bloodshot, tired eyes--and made him talk to her about staying behind, damn the hour of the night. She curses the fact that she couldn’t that instead she was forced to spend the night tossing and turning while he was mere steps away. It was Bellamy who said that they were in this together, but  _ together _ is not what Clarke felt as she ran through every possible thing that could go wrong on Earth II by herself. And it wasn’t how she felt standing before his door at the earliest reasonable hour she could think of, hand hovering to knock, only to turn away in frustration and come to the Mess.

A shitty radio and bad reception isn’t keeping her and Bellamy apart anymore but since yesterday it’s felt like more than a ship’s length is between them. And if she’s honest with herself, Clarke can’t shake the feeling that for the past few weeks all she’s been doing is waiting for Bellamy. Waiting on him to approach her. To seek her out. Waiting on the sound of his boots as he strides down the corridor. Listening for the call of her name from his lips, the sharp rap of his knuckles against her door. She’s been waiting on Bellamy like there’s still a thermosphere between them, and it’s up to him to cross it. But that’s not the case anymore and while she knows she needs to stop acting like it is, it’s a hard habit to break. She spent six years waiting on him, it’s going to take more than a couple of weeks for her to change her behavior. Though that doesn’t mean it’s not eating at her that she can’t seem to work up the nerve to confront him.

“Do what you think is best,” Clarke mutters, taking a sip of algae from her mug. “Hell if I know what that is. The whole point of me bringing it up was to talk it through. It doesn’t just affect me.”

“What doesn’t just affect you?”

Clarke yelps. Her hand jerks sending algae over the rim of her mug and on to the table.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Jordan exclaims, jogging past her seat to grab a towel. He quickly wipes up the spill giving Clarke a sheepish smile as she tries to get her heart to stop jumping around in her chest.

“It’s okay, Jordan,” Clarke says, shaking her head when he offers to get her more algae to replace what had spilled.

“It’s the least I could do,” he says, grabbing his own mug and filling it. 

“Really, it’s fine.”

“Would you mind company?”

Clarke thinks on it. She knows that there’s nothing about her that looks the least bit inviting, but talking with Jordan may prove to be the distraction she needs. Her mind has been on a one track loop since yesterday. All she’s been able to think about is the mission, and all she’s been able to do is worry about how her decision may impact the others.

She nods, gesturing to the seat in front of her on the other side of the table. “Please.”

“Thanks,” Jordan says with another smile. “I think we’re the only two up right now.”

“Probably,” Clarke says. “But I’m used to it. I’m usually the first one up anyway.”

“You and Bellamy,” Jordan says, taking a sip from his mug. “You two are always in here first filling your thermoses for the day.” He looks around. “Though not today. Guess Bellamy slept late.”

Clarke hums and plays with the handle on her mug, turning the cup this way and that. She can feel Jordan’s eyes on her, but she doesn’t look up. There are countless possibilities for why Bellamy hasn’t come to get breakfast yet. Clarke’s been trying not the dwell on any of them especially not the ones involving him avoiding her. But Jordan is right. Bellamy tends to be like clockwork about certain things and having a set wake-up time is one of them. No matter what time he went to sleep, he pops up at seven unless he needs to be up earlier for some reason or the other. She glances at the clock on the wall. The time is 8:00.

“Rough night,” Jordan asks.

Clarke snorts and looks back down at her drink. “What gave me away?”

“Your eyes. They look sad.”

“I’m just tired, Jordan,” she says, attempting to deflect but Jordan doesn’t buy it, and Clarke supposes that’s what she gets for not committing to the half-truth.

“Did something happen?”

“No,” Clarke says though she knows it’s a lie. She gives Jordan an honest reason for some of her sadness as a way of making it up for it. “I miss Madi.”

“Oh, right,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Clarke’s shoulders sag in relief at the acceptance of her answer. “It’s okay,” she assures him. 

“Is it though,” Jordan asks, scooting his chair up and folding his hands on the table. There’s a new light in his eyes like he’s latched onto something that he’s not going to let go of. “I mean...she’s still asleep.”

“Yeah,” Clarke says wondering what he’s getting at.

“Don’t you think that’s...I mean...wouldn’t she want to be up with the rest of us?”

“I’m sure she would.”

“Then why isn’t she--”

“Jordan,” she says, firmly, attempting to shut down that line of questioning. There are many conversations that Clarke would entertain for Jordan’s sake, but one about her parenting choices is not among them. 

He leans back in his chair. “Sorry. Sorry,” he says, holding his hands up. “It’s just...you wouldn’t be sad if Madi were awake, too.”

“Probably not, no,” Clarke says even though she knows that’s not entirely true. She’d still have the same dilemma just with the added opinion of a 12 year old Commander to consider.

“So, I don’t get it.”

“You wouldn’t,” she says with a sigh. 

“Right,” Jordan says. His voice is dry, flattening out of the cautious tone he’d been using. “Because I’m not a parent.”

Clarke’s eyes widen as she watches him close himself off, the light in his eyes dulls as he looks at her. All traces of his good humor and smile are gone.

“Jordan, I--,” she says, reaching a hand out to his before thinking better of it and retracting. She takes a long sip from her mug to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts and then instantly regrets it. More algae than Clarke’s used to slides into her mouth, causing her to choke a bit from the compounded foul taste. She swallows hard before pushing the mug out of reach.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Jordan says.

It’s been weeks. Clarke doubts she’ll ever learn to like algae, but she uses the moment to try and course correct. “So am I apparently,” she says, wiping at her mouth with her hand.

Jordan’s lips twitch, but that’s all he gives her besides a whispered, “Nice one,” before he looks down and starts picking at the table as if it isn’t already spotless. 

Clarke takes in Jordan’s slouched form. She’d say he looks petulant, but it’s more than that. It’s almost as if the tables have been turned and he’s the one tired and sad.

“Did you hear that alot growing up,” she asks, thinking back to the way she’d felt when her mother used that line on her and imagines Jordan feels much the same way she did whenever she heard it. Angry, irritated, patronized. A plethora of adjectives that boiled down to her feeling like no more than a child before a mother who would only see her as her baby and nothing more.

“Not often,” Jordan says, still not looking at her. “But often enough. I figure all parents say that they’re doing what’s best for their children, but I also figure not many of them consider what their  _ children _ might think is best.”

“I’m sure Monty and Harper--”

“Mom and Dad were great,” he interrupts. “I’m not saying they weren’t. I just think that they were so stuck in their bubble of protecting me that they couldn’t see past it. Dad was obsessed with cracking the Eligius III files and wouldn’t hear of waking anyone up to assist. And Mom went along with it because she didn’t trust that we could maintain peace on this ship.”

“You didn’t agree.”

“No,” Jordan says shaking his head. “Of course I didn’t. It was just the three of us on this big ship. Dad was better at hiding it, but I could tell that they both missed you guys. Whenever they were stuck on something they’d ask what would Raven do or you or Bellamy, hell even sometimes Murphy. It’s what kept them going, but for me, it’s what kept me stuck because I couldn’t do anything to help them at least not in the way they needed.”

“Jordan,” Clarke says, leaning forward to grab his fidgeting hand. “You did what you could.”

He sniffs and uses his free hand to wipe the tear that escaped his eye. “It wasn’t enough.”

“Trust me. You being there was more than enough.”

With a weak smile, Jordan says, “Thanks, but you’re just like them, and you would have made the same choice if it meant protecting Madi. But the problem is, whether you realize it or not, you’re not the only one who has to live with your choices. Madi does, too.”

Jordan pats Clarke’s hand before letting go of it. “Maybe keeping Madi asleep is what’s best for her. Maybe it isn’t, I don’t know; I’m not a parent. But maybe what’s really best for her is what’s best for both of you.”

He stands up, chair sliding somewhat noisily across the floor before he pushes it in and grabs his mug. “Algae for thought,” he says, taking a sip. “See you later, Clarke.”

Clarke watches Jordan leave with a lump in her throat. “Shit,” she mutters. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” Running a hand through her hair, she tries to get her thoughts to slow down, but she can’t, so she focuses on cleaning up. 

Pushing away from the table, Clarke pours the last of her algae into a thermos and then fills it to the brim before twisting its top on. She rinses her mug out in the sink; her hands shake as she works to dry the cup. Next she tidies the area around the sink placing her mug back among the others. Then she takes a towel and wipes down the surface of the table she and Jordan were sitting at, taking care to maneuver the chairs into their proper position underneath the table. Job done, she throws her towel in the wash bin and then adjusts its liner so that the ends lie flat once the top is closed. Looking around, she notices that all of the chairs in the Mess are under their respective tables and from what she can see none of the tables are dirty. She grabs her  thermos and leaves, her fingers tap against its metal surface, and her mind begins to wander away from her.

Walking down the hallway is an experience in being there and not being there. It’s her footsteps echoing down the corridor, her breath she hears in her ears, but Clarke doesn’t feel like it’s herself. Not when she knocks on Bellamy and Echo’s door. Not when she knocks again after receiving no answer, and not on the third knock either. It is as if her body is on autopilot moving from one action to the next. She finds herself before Raven’s door knowing logically that she must have walked further down the hallway to reach it, but not remembering having the thought to do so nor the will. Still, her hand raises to knock and then she knocks again when she’s only greeted with silence. She doesn’t get the chance to knock a third time because the door swings open.

“What,” Raven growls. She’s in yesterday’s clothes, her sweater is rucked up and her pants are slung low. There’s a pillow imprint on her cheek.

“I’m looking for Bellamy,” Clarke says, feeling her mouth move without her consent. Her voice sounds flat, bland even.

Raven narrows her eyes at her and then looks over her shoulder at the digital clock on her nightstand. The time reads 8:30. “He’s usually attached at your hip by this time.”

“He didn’t come to the Mess.”

“And so you came here?”

“No,” Clarke says. “I went to his and Echo’s room first, then I came here.”

“Right. Clarke, are you okay?”

“I just need to find Bellamy,” she says, tapping her fingers against her thermos. 

Raven stares at Clarke for a moment before pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s too early for this.”

“8:30 isn’t early.”

“It is when you pulled an all-nighter going over landing plans for the Earth II mission.”

Clarke nods. “Go back to sleep,” she says and turns down the hallway ignoring Raven calling after her.

It takes Clarke a minute to recognize that she’s heading toward the control room. She thinks,  _ Maybe he’s there _ , and then the thought flutters away from her on an imaginary wind like it hadn’t been her own but a distant whisper.

Clarke stops when she hears a grunt come from the corridor to her left. She says, “Bellamy,” and heads in the direction she heard him. The further she gets down the corridor the clearer the sound of skin hitting skin becomes.

“You’re distracted.”

Clarke stops.  _ Echo _ .

“I’m tired.”

“That, too. You didn’t sleep well.”

“No.”

“You gonna tell me why?”

There’s a smack and then a grunt from Echo. “I’m not easily distracted,” she wheezes and then there’s another smack followed by a gasp of pain from Bellamy. “You’ve been in your head lately.”

“No more than usual.”

“If I’m mentioning it, Bellamy, it’s more than usual.”

Clarke wills herself to move, but her feet stay still. Her fingers clink against her thermos again.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

“How about what’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” he huffs. “Is wrong.”

“If you want me to believe that then you’re gonna have to believe it yourself.”

There’s a series of smacks. One after the other. Clarke’s fingers match them in rhythm. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Okay,” Echo says. “We’re done.”

“What? Why? I thought you liked kicking my ass.”

“I do, but your head’s not in it right now. I don’t know where it is but it’s not here.”

“Echo.”

“I’m gonna go shower.”

Clarke listens to the sound of Echo’s footsteps fade. When they’re gone she finds that she can move again. She strides down the remaining length of the corridor stopping in the entrance of the training facility. 

Bellamy is in the center of the fighting mat. Sweat soaks the back of his shirt, and he’s barefoot.

She says nothing as she watches him cross the room and grab a towel. He wipes his face, once, twice before throwing the towel down and grabbing for a water bottle. 

The metallic sound of Clarke’s fingers against her thermos is what brings his attention to her.

“Clarke,” he says, after wiping his mouth. 

“Bellamy.” she says in turn, stepping further into the room. She stops at the edge of the mat. “I need to talk to you.”

“You made a decision,” he asks, walking toward her.

“No.”

“Then why do we need to talk?”

“You didn’t come to breakfast,” she says, surprising herself with her answer though Clarke doesn’t feel her body respond in kind. There is only the continued tapping of her fingers against her thermos.

Bellamy tilts his head, confusion written clear across his face. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“You were avoiding me,” Clarke concludes. “Understood.” She turns, heading toward the entrance of the facility though she doesn’t want to leave.  _ He didn’t say he was avoiding me _ , she thinks but that thought, too, flutters away from her.

“Clarke.”

She turns at the call of her name. “Yes.”

Bellamy steps down from the mat and walks over to her. “You said you needed to talk to me.”

“You don’t want to talk.”

“What is going on?”

“I think it’s called dissociation,” she says, tapping her thermos and willing herself to stop talking, but she doesn’t. 

“What?”

“Dissociation,” Clarke begins. “It’s a psychological term. I am experiencing a disconnect from myself and my emotions. I read about it in one of Becca’s books.”

Bellamy reaches a hand out to her, but Clarke steps back.

“I don’t want to be touched,” she says though she’s not sure how much she means it. Their interaction is becoming fuzzy around the edges, dream-like almost. 

“Okay,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “So what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it okay if we sit?”

Clarke nods and then walks to the middle of the fighting mat. She lowers herself and crosses her legs like a pretzel, placing her thermos between her legs. Her fingers tap against its top. The tapping is comforting, but she’s not sure why.

Bellamy goes to grab his water bottle and towel before coming to join her. He hands her the bottle. She drinks from it and then hands it back.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Madi,” she says, hand stilling on the top of her thermos. “Jordan thinks I should wake her up.”

“What do you think?”

“I think,” Clarke starts and then her mouth dries. She grabs Bellamy’s water bottle and drinks some more before setting it down between them. “I think there are too many variables. What do you think?”

Bellamy hesitates.

“I want to know.”

He sighs. “I think Madi should have choices like the rest of us do.”

Clarke’s hand shakes as she pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. What moments ago had felt like floating outside of her body now feels like crash landing back into it. All of her emotions settle in hard and fast. “I--her...her choices. I don’t like her choices.”

“What do you mean?”

She swallows and tries not to duck away from the concern in his eyes. Feeling out of control flusters Clarke. She knows her face must be as red as her eyes. That while his flush is from physical exertion, hers is from manic over-analyzation and the sudden onslaught of suppressed emotion. She hates that once again she’s talking to Bellamy under duress, completely undone, boiling over like a 20th century teapot.  _ Congratulations, Bellamy _ , she thinks.  _ This Clarke is a mess. Add that to your list of problems _ .

Clarke clears her throat and rolls her shoulders, feeling an itch down her spine. “Her choices should be about food...or--or games,” she says, pushing another lock of hair behind her ear, hand shaking all the while. “She’s a child, Bellamy.”

“I know,” Bellamy says. Clarke can see how uncomfortable he is, his hands are balled on the mat. She wishes he would touch her like he would have on Earth, like he did weeks ago in the medbay, and yesterday in the cryo-chamber.  _ I take it back _ , she thinks.  _ I take it back. Touch me _ .

“But Madi’s not like other children,” he continues. “I’m not sure she ever was.”

This conversation is a minefield, Clarke knows because the detonation of Bellamy’s words explodes through her, jarring her out of her thoughts. “You took that chance from her,” she says without fire, but the sentence still burns as it leaves her mouth.

Bellamy shakes his head. He’s a guilty man before her; he will always be a guilty man before her. And still Clarke wants him to touch her. Has wanted him to touch her. Is so aware of him that she feels his heat whenever they’re next to one another. She feels it now as she lights a match by saying, “I can’t give it back,” and waits for the ground between them to burn like her mouth.

But Bellamy doesn’t throw in any kindling. He doesn’t rise to fight fire with fire. All he says is, “You can’t give her something she never had, Clarke,” with sadness in his voice.

His words make Clarke want to tear her hair out. She doesn’t know what she wants; she doesn’t know why she’s even here. It was her feet that led her to him; her mind that took control, and she has no clue what she wants from him other than his touch, other than wanting not to feel like the world is once again on her shoulders, but she’s alone to bear it. Bellamy is sitting right in front of her, but it doesn’t feel like he is. It feels like she’s back in her room, tossing in her bed, staring at her doorway, willing him to come to her and make it better. That’s what he did for her, that’s what they did for each other. They made existing better when it was such utter shit most of the time.

“You don’t know what she had,” Clarke says.  _ Because you weren’t there _ , she doesn’t say because it’s small, and she already feels small. Bellamy must, too, because one of his hands unballs and for a moment Clarke thinks that he’s going to reach for her, but he doesn’t. He retracts, and she could scream with how much it hurts to see. Bellamy is respecting what she asked of him, and any other time she’d be appreciative. Any other time but this one when wires are crossing in her head, when she’s scared for herself, for Madi, for him. This time where things are once again uncertain, but she doesn’t have him to turn to when she needs him. Not the way she wants to, not the way she thought she could once he came back.

“I know that she had you,” Bellamy says. “I know that you loved her and took care of her when no one else could. I know that she’d do anything for you including becoming the thing that scared the both of you so much that you were willing to kill my sister to prevent it from happening. And”--He swallows--“I know that you don’t want to wake her because you’re scared she’ll become you.”

Everything inside of Clarke screeches to a halt. Her breath quickens. “What?”

“Leaders sacrifice,” he says. “Even when they win, they lose, and it never ends; the clock just starts over. There’s always something they can give, and they will give until there is nothing left. You know that. I know that. You never wanted Madi to know it.”

“But, Clarke,” Bellamy goes on. “Keeping Madi asleep isn't going to stop her from knowing the things we know. It's not going to stop her from being Commander. I may have taken her chance at being a regular kid, but you can’t tell me you want to steal more time from her than we’ve already taken.”

_ But I do _ , Clarke thinks. It’s horrifying, but it’s true. She would steal all of Madi’s time. If given the choice, Clarke would keep her daughter asleep forever if it meant her not walking in her shoes. And she tells Bellamy this, lets the horrible words stutter out of her mouth, her tongue tripping over their toxicity because they are true and she promised him honesty. 

“For her safety, I’d do anything,” Clarke says and that’s exactly what Jordan warned her against. The smothering, too hard, suffocating press of a parent’s desperate love for their child growing wild like a weed. Clarke had become a monster for her people. She’d grown claws, struck at who needed striking at, lied, killed, and murdered so many that ghosts trail in her wake.  _ Wanheda _ has a daughter now. She’d seen it when Madi slaughtered two men in the name of her people, and she’d walked away from it like she’d simply been crushing ants beneath her boots. It wasn’t the Commanders’ table the child had eaten at while young, it had been hers.

“I know,” Bellamy says, his hand slides close to hers, their fingers nearly brush. 

Clarke moves her hand away, suddenly wishing not to be touched. Feeling like she doesn’t deserve to be. Her skin pricks with her nerves, with how uncomfortable she is watching him watch her. She wonders if this was how he felt when he panicked in front of her, when he looked like he was going to shake apart at the thought of their separation.

“But, Clarke,” he says, earnest like he always is, trying to make her see reason when all reason has left her. “Whether it’s a few weeks or a few months, it’s still stealing time from Madi. We may have gotten a lot of it recently, but we both know the ground has very little to spare. Whether you stay up here or go down to Earth II, time is not going to be on our side.”

Clarke wants to argue. She wants to insist that he’s wrong that this time is different, but she knows it’s not. She could do everything right. They could find a place to settle, get everything ready to her specification, and then wake Madi, but feeling prepared on the ground isn’t going to change her reality. Madi is Commander. Her ascension is a fixed point in time, one that she can’t change. Only her daughter can choose to step down, and she won’t. She’s mythologized too many bygone stories to shirk the shroud of duty.

Bellamy turns his hand over and, whether it’s an invitation or not, Clarke takes it as one and slides her palm over his.

For a moment they both stare at their clasped hands and then Bellamy’s thumb smooths over her knuckles.

“Madi’s hand is smaller than yours,” he says, before squeezing her hand. “She’d grabbed mine moments after meeting me, and led me to you. She said that you knew I would come, and she trusted that I would know how to save you. I’m sure that’s because of the stories you told her, but Clarke, that instant trust, that belief was terrifying. I had a child’s heart in my hands. I still do. I want to do right by her.”

There’s a part of Clarke that is stuck on Bellamy’s hand in hers. It’s calculating the temperature of their points of contact. It’s counting the seconds turning into minutes as their hands stay interlocked. And there’s another part pushing her to focus, to latch onto his words and hear him. To hear his sincerity and his care for her daughter. To hear that she’s not alone in her worry as he describes what it’s like to see Madi unsure and to know that the weight he placed on her shoulders is heavier than a child should bear. He sounds like a man concerned; he sounds like he would have if he’d been in her room last night talking things through with her like she’d wanted him to be. 

“Then what do you suggest I do, Bellamy,” Clarke asks, letting him in and letting him help her.

“I don’t know much about the Commanders of the past,” he says. “But I do know that a little training has never hurt anybody.”

“Gaia.”

Bellamy nods. “And probably Indra,” he says. “Both of them are teachers.”

“You want to put Madi in Commander school,” she asks. The idea is not funny; it’s not funny at all, and yet she finds her lips twitching at the thought. 

“What?”

Clarke laughs, it’s low and a little under her breath, but it’s there making her feel lighter than she had before. “It--It just means more lessons.” She laughs again. A smile wins its fight onto her face. “She’s gonna hate that idea.”

“What? She’s not a nerd like her mom,” Bellamy asks matching her smile.

“Don’t start with me,” she says through a chuckle. “You’re just as bad as I am.”

“Mhmm,” Bellamy hums.

A door closes catching Clarke and Bellamy’s attention--their hands separate. It’s the entrance to the locker room; Echo is standing before it towel drying her hair. 

“Clarke,” she acknowledges, walking over to the two of them. “I didn’t know you train.”

“I do,” Clarke says, pushing up from the mat to stand. She wishes her pants had pockets. Without Bellamy’s hand in hers she feels adrift again, sliding her hand into a pocket would anchor her. She settles for wrapping her fingers around her thermos. “Though not right now. Bellamy and I were just talking.” 

“I see that,” Echo says just as Bellamy is getting up from the mat to stand as well. “About the mission? Has anything changed?”

“Um,” Clarke looks at Bellamy and then back to Echo. “In a way. We’re still working out the details.”

“Well, what does Raven has to say about these details?”

“Wait,” Bellamy says, turning to Clarke. “You’re going to do it?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she says, lips quirking into a smile at the excitement in his eyes. He looks disbelieving as if one conversation shouldn’t have been able to change her mind. But Clarke has found that while it’s the conversation, it’s also the person she’s had it with. This wouldn’t be the first time she’s changed her stance on something after talking it out with Bellamy. She doubts it will be the last.

“Do what,” Echo asks, looking between the both of them, confused.

“We’re waking Madi,” Clarke says. “And Gaia. Potentially Indra but like I said the details still need to be worked out.”

“When was this decided?”

Clarke’s smile begins to fade as she registers Echo’s tone. “Just now.”

“Without the group?”

“Decisions about my daughter don’t concern the group.”

“She is  _ Heda _ ,” Echo says as if the mere utterance of that word should explain her resistance to this being solely Clarke’s decision.

“Madi is a child,” Clarke says. “And I am her mother. This decision isn’t up for discussion; I’m doing it.”

Echo drops her towel on the mat. “She is Commander,  _ Wanheda _ , and you are talking about waking her advisors. Your daughter she may be, but those two have yet to prove themselves.”

“Echo,” Bellamy says. “They pledged fealty to Madi, and they fought alongside us.”

“That was war,” Echo explains. “This is peace time. Indra was loyal to Octavia for far longer than she was trapped in the bunker with  _ Blodreina _ . Gaia may be trustworthy since she’s a Flamekeeper and blindly loyal to the Commanders’ lineage, but what if she convinces  _ Heda _ to wake her people?”

Bellamy looks to Clarke. She shakes her head at him and crosses her arms. He sighs. 

“She’s not going to do that,” Bellamy says.

“You don’t know that.”

“We do,” Clarke says. “Gaia will only do what’s best for Madi and right now that’s teaching her the things she would have learned as a novitiate without the burden of leading at the same time. Indra nearly lost her daughter twice to Octavia’s whims. She’s not going to be willing to risk that again.”

“And I saw the way they both looked at Madi,” Bellamy adds. “Indra doesn’t believe as strongly as her daughter, but she does believe in her duty to the new Commander. She knows what she sacrificed to free  _ Wonkru _ from my sister; she’s not going to betray Madi.”

“So you two have just decided this,” Echo asks, irritation clear on her face. “Without input from the rest of us.”

“Yes,” Clarke says. “I don’t need your permission to wake up my daughter.” She looks at Bellamy, sees the stress on  his face from their conversation. It hasn’t been combative, but she wouldn’t call it pleasant either, so she relents. 

Turning back to Echo, Clarke says, “But we can hold a meeting about Gaia and Indra. I don’t agree with you; I don’t think there’s any cause for concern. They aren’t threats to Madi or this group, but you’re right; waking those two up isn’t my decision, it’s ours.”

“Control room in an hour,” Bellamy asks.

Clarke nods. “See you then,” she says and walks off, refusing to stiffen at the feel of Echo’s stare as she exits.

\-----

Clarke leans against the wall and waits for the others to arrive. It is just her, Echo, and Bellamy once again except this time there is silence. She can feel the tension rolling off the two of them and it’s causing her own nerves to be on end. Her body is also hyper-aware of the distance between her and Bellamy which is not helping matters. She could reach him in a few steps, all she would have to do is push off the wall and walk, but it’s not necessary. Clarke can stand in a room without being next to him; she can even if her body for some reason thinks she can’t at the moment.

“This better be important,” Raven says as soon as the doors open and get out of her way. She looks much the same as she did earlier this morning when Clarke saw her except now she has a ponytail and an impressively grumpier countenance. Shaw trails behind her clutching an algae thermos like it has coffee in it, a drink he’s been obsessively looking for on the ship since he woke up. 

Jordan enters and immediately makes a beeline for Clarke. He slides next to her, bumping his shoulder with hers. “Hi,” he says. “Short time no see.”

“Hi, Jordan,” Clarke says with a smile.

“You look better,” Jordan says. “You must have met with Bellamy.”

His voice carries and halts Raven’s conversation with Shaw.

“You found him,” she asks. “Good. Zombie Clarke is one I never want to deal with ever again.”

Clarke wills herself not to blush.  _ Neurological dysfunction is a response to stress _ , she reminds herself.  _ It’s not normal, but it is explainable and your behavior is nothing to be embarrassed about _ . Still, she can feel her cheeks getting hot.

“Let’s not refer to our friends as zombies, Raven,” Bellamy says, flatly.

“What crawled up your butt and died, Blake,” she asks just as the doors open for Emori and Murphy.

“My money’s on sentient algae,” Murphy says. “Is he still brooding? He was brooding last night. For your own sake, Bellamy, unclench.”

“Murphy, shut up and leave him alone,” Clarke says, pushing off the wall.

“Whoa,” he says holding his hands up. “Didn’t mean to offend, Princess.”

Emori side-eyes him. “Yes, you did,” she says. “Anyway, why are we here?”

Echo speaks before Bellamy and Clarke can. “Clarke wants to wake  _ Heda _ .”

“That's already been decided,” Bellamy says stepping forward. “We're waking her.”

“And we don't get a vote,” Raven asks, there's a growl simmering in for voice. She looks ready to pounce.

“Do we deserve one,” Murphy asks. “You guys tried to kidnap her.”

“Well, Clarke electroshocked her,” Raven says. “So, I think in comparison our actions were tame.”

The room goes silent. Clarke doesn't say anything, her hands are balled at her sides. Her fingers dig wells into her palms. They're all looking at her, but it's Bellamy's eyes that she feels the most.

He clears his throat. “The decision's been made,” he says. “We're here to discuss Gaia and Indra.”

“She wants to wake them, too,” Emori asks. “What for?”

“We think it would be a good idea to train Madi,” he says. “She's Commander, but she's also 12. The chip will only do so much.”

“She needs to learn her history,” Clarke says. “As well as strategy, community building, sustainable living--”

“You want to send the Commander...to school,” Emori asks, skeptically, eyebrows raising.

“Yes,” Bellamy says.

Raven laughs. “And you want Indra and Gaia to teach her? Have you two learned nothing?”

“And you,” Clarke says ignoring her last question. “I want you to teach her about A.I.s, coding, and how to make tech with what you have.”

She turns around, facing Jordan. “And I want you to teach her about farming and how to run this ship.”

“I'm not a teacher, Clarke,” he says, looking around at the others for back-up.

“No, you're not,” she agrees. “But you know what you're doing and you know what you're talking about. I trust your skills, Jordan, and your judgement. You were right. I have to give Madi a way to help; a way to make her own decisions about her future. This is how she can do that.”

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “If you need me, I'm in.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay,” Murphy says. “Let me get this straight. You want to wake an injured fanatic and her warrior mother to teach a 12 year old how to lead a group of adults.”

“Basically,” Shaw says taking a sip of his algae and wincing. “Sounds crazy to me but, considering she's the only person her people will actually listen to, I think it's better to train her than to throw her to the wolves.”

“Let's put it to a vote,” Bellamy says. “All in favor of waking Gaia and Indra?”

He raises his hand as do Clarke, Jordan, and Shaw.

“All not in favor?”

Echo raises her hand along with Murphy and Emori.

“Sorry, Clarke,” Murphy says. “I’m cool with waking the hobbit, but I don't think we should be waking up anyone from  _ Wonkru _ until we can put some distance between us and them. I'm over grounder politics.”

“Raven,” Bellamy prompts. “For or against?”

Raven looks around at the group and exhales, placing her hands on her hips. “I'm not thrilled about this plan,” she says. “I’m not even sure it's a good idea, but Monty wanted us to do better, and I think it makes sense to extend that opportunity to Madi, too. A child shouldn't be in charge of anything, but that didn't stop a whole nation of people from bowing to her and fighting in her name. I'd rather she be prepared to lead if she has to, and there are things that I can't teach her that Gaia and Indra can.”

She turns to Clarke. “You and I don't do forgiveness,” Raven says. “That's more of you and Bellamy's thing. But I would never put my feelings concerning you above making sure Madi's taken care of. We may have different ideas of what that looks like, but I would never hurt her. So if you think this is what is best for her in the long run then I'm for it.”

Clarke swallows and nods, mouthing, “Thank you,” before Bellamy says, “It's decided then. We're waking Gaia and Indra.”

“But first Madi,” Raven says, a small smile on her lips. “Go get your kid, Clarke.”

Clarke smiles, too. A warmth settles in her heart at the thought of being reunited with Madi.

The others shuffle out of the control room. Raven's off to get a few more hours of sleep. Shaw mutters something about checking more rooms for coffee. Jordan and Murphy bicker over what movie to watch next on their 21st century movie watch list while Emori rolls her eyes. And Echo leaves without a word to anyone about where she's going which leaves Bellamy and Clarke by themselves.

“Sorry,” Clarke says.

“For what,” Bellamy asks, closing the distance between them.

Clarke gives him a look.

He shrugs. “We disagreed,” he says. “It happens.”

“Right,” Clarke says, looking back at the entrance. She's not sure that's the only reason Echo brushed past him, but it's not her problem and she probably shouldn't make it hers either. There's being a good friend and there's getting in the middle of his relationship and she'd rather not touch that can of worms with a ten foot pole.

“Ready to go wake Madi,” she asks, turning back to him with a smile.

Bellamy blinks. “You want me to come with you?”

“Yeah,” Clarke says, feeling self-conscious at his surprise. She runs a hand up her arm, tries to play off her nerves. “I just thought since we made the decision together…”

“That we could wake her together,” he finishes.

She nods. “You don’t have to. It’s fi--”

“No, I want to,” Bellamy interrupts. “I want to.”

“Okay,” Clarke says. “Well, um….,” she gestures to the doorway and starts walking.

Bellamy falls in step with her, and they make their way to the cryo-chamber.

\---

Waiting on Madi to wake up feels like an eternity to Clarke though she supposes she’s used to the feeling. These weeks without her have felt much the same. Time stretched on, running in front of her, slowing down but never stopping. She learned a long time ago that time moved on without people. It moved on without her father, without Wells, and Finn, and Lexa. It waited on no one and no thing. Clarke once tried to emulate its stoicism after losing love, but she failed when she found love again, ironically with a girl who believed love is a weakness. Lexa wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t right either. Love is what got her here, standing before her daughter’s pod, waiting on her to wake up. Love is what got her through six years on a radiated planet with a child to take care of. 

Like time, Clarke always moves forward but moving on would mean moving past and every love she’s gained or lost has shaped her in some way. For the better, for the worst. She has scars from love, bruises, wounds that are still healing. If a cartographer were to map her heart, it would have to be topographical. If it weren’t, they would never understand her. They would never know that short of death, there is no place she could go where she wouldn't feel her love for Madi. They would never know the locations of her ties to this girl; the heart strings that run like rivers and tug at her senses reminding her of who she is and what she’s become. She has loved Madi beyond measure, sometimes beyond reason, unconditionally, and unfortunately, recklessly. But she has loved her in all the ways she knows how.

_I gave up the world and found you_ , she thinks as Madi blinks awake. _And_ _I would give up the world for you. I'm sorry. This is what it means to be my child._

Clarke finds, in the moment that they explain their situation to Madi, that the definition of what it means to be her mother has changed. It’s a case of knowing something and actually seeing it. She has known that Madi is Commander, and what that would entail, but watching the smile slip from her daughter’s face as she learns of the years she slept through and the destruction of her home truly cements how much the child sacrificed for her. If Madi were anyone else, she could cry, she could rage and scream; she could grieve. But she doesn’t, she simply listens with a straight face, an even straighter back, and empty eyes. Stoic is not a word a twelve year old should be able to embody. Youth should make it impossible, but Madi is not young in the way other children are young. Not anymore.

Laying a hand on his arm, Clarke stops Bellamy’s next sentence with a touch and steps forward to brush a hand across Madi’s cheek. Now is not the time for facts, now is the time for lessons. She sees the truth of that as Madi retreats further into herself to hide from the pain of her loss.

“Don’t bury it,” Clarke says, reaching for her daughter’s hand. “It will only hurt worse when it resurfaces.” 

Pain is tricky that way. It will let you think that you made a grave of it when really all it’s been doing is laying low, waiting for its moment to lash out. A few hundred of the bodies that lie on death’s counter are there courtesy of Clarke’s pain. She does not want that for her daughter.

“It’s a distraction,” Madi says, hand limp in Clarke’s. “We don’t have time for distractions.”

“How you feel isn’t a distraction,” Bellamy says, moving to stand by Clarke’s side. “We have time for whatever you need and whatever time we don’t have, we’ll make some.”

Madi shakes her head. “That’s not how it works.”

“It’s how it works today,” Clarke says. “And it’s how it will work tomorrow, too. You lost your home, Madi.”

“But I didn’t lose my people,” she says trying to be brave. “I didn’t lose you.”

Tears prick at Clarke’s eyes. “No, sweetheart. You didn’t lose me.” She pulls Madi into a hug.

“What are we going to do,” Madi asks, voice slightly muffled by Clarke’s shoulder.

Clarke looks up at Bellamy as she says, “We have an idea, but you may not like it.”

Contrary to Clarke’s assumption, Madi is excited about Commander school. Her eyes light up at the idea like they would whenever Clarke would tell her a story about her friends. For a few moments it’s like having the daughter she knew back again. The prospect of new information has her nearly bouncing on her toes. Madi always did like to learn, it was the structure of it that tended to chafe against her instinct to get up and move. There would be times where Clarke would be teaching her in the midst of the young girl doing cartwheels and flips. She had no problem retaining information, it was the sitting and slowing down that was the issue. Her daughter was a barrel of energy and energy did not like being contained. 

“Are we waking Gaia now,” Madi asks.

“Is that what you want?”

Clarke sees Madi working to answer Bellamy’s question. Her mouth opens as if she’s about to answer and then quickly shuts.

“You can take the night,” Clarke suggests. “We’re on a ship; the new planet isn’t going anywhere.”

Madi’s brows furrow. “But what about the mission?”

“We have a few days,” Bellamy says. “And you’ll be staying here anyway.”

“I don’t like that plan.”

“But it’s the plan,” Clarke says, reminding Madi. “You’ll stay here and learn from Gaia, Indra, Raven, and Jordan. We don’t know anything about Earth II, and even if you did come, there wouldn’t be time to do the recon we need and teach you.”

“Yeah, but you guys get to have all the fun,” Madi says, crossing her arms. 

Clarke looks at Bellamy and shifts uncomfortably. “Um...Bellamy may be the only one having all the fun.”

“What?”

Bellamy shifts, too. “Clarke might stay here.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous,” Clarke explains. “Anything could happen.”

“Then Bellamy shouldn’t go either,” Madi says like it’s obvious. “If it’s so dangerous then no one should go. We should wait until we know more about Earth II.”

“We can’t do that, Madi,” Bellamy says. “We don’t have the technology. It has to be a manned mission.”

“Well, why do you have to go,” Madi asks, her voice rising. “Why can’t you stay here, too?”

Bellamy sighs. “Because it’s what needs to be done.”

“So, you’re just going to leave again,” Madi says. “After everything I told you?”

_ What did she tell him _ , Clarke wonders. Her heart thumps. Being the only two people above ground, there wasn't a lot she could hide from her. Some days she didn't have the strength to be brave and have hope. And other days-- anniversaries of good times, memories being sparked by flora or objects they'd come across--she'd have so much hope she was bursting with it. Either way, the radio was never too far from Clarke's hand.

“Madi,” Bellamy says, shaking his head, but the child doesn’t stop.

“You were gone for six years,” she says. “Are you going to be gone for another six?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“Madi,” Clarke intervenes. “Stop it.”

“You stop it,” she says, turning to Clarke. “Stop pretending like it’s fine.”

“I didn’t say it was fine, Madi,” Clarke says, not looking at Bellamy though she feels him tense beside her. “None of it’s fine.”

Madi is red-faced and angry. Clarke is concerned that they told her too much too fast. In the span of minutes she’s gone from attempting to conceal her devastation, barely containing her excitement about training, and now struggling to rein in her temper. That's too much for anyone to handle let alone a child.

“You’re acting like it,” Madi says, sounding ever much her age. “You want to talk about school and Gaia and Indra and everyone else, but what about Earth II? How long is this mission? How long are Bellamy and the others going to be gone?”

“A few weeks,” Bellamy says. “It’s a recon mission. We’re surveying the land and finding a good place to settle. If we find one, we’ll call you down. If we don’t, we come back and regroup.”

“Then why aren’t you going,” Madi asks Clarke. 

“It’s dangerous,” she reiterates. “We know nothing about this planet. Anything could go wrong.”

“It’s not dangerous enough for you to stop Bellamy from going.”

_ Where is this coming from _ . It feels like her daughter is trying to push her out of her life. The sting of Madi’s insistence that she either go on the mission or no one goes makes her voice rise as well. “Why do you want me gone so bad?”

“I don’t want you gone,  _ nomon _ ,” Madi says. Her voice cracks. “I just don’t want you here when you should be down there. When you  _ would _ be down there if it weren’t for me.”

“Madi,”Clarke says, voice softening. All the steam building inside of her releases as she takes in Madi’s watery eyes and the defiance on her face like she’s daring Clarke to correct her, to say she’s mistaken, or misunderstands.

“It’s true,” Madi says. “You wouldn’t hesitate; you would do what needs to be done.”

“And what if I die while doing what needs to be done,” Clarke asks, trying to get Madi to see her side of things. “Because that’s a possibility, Madi. I could die down there while you’re up here.”

“Bellamy wouldn’t let that happen.”

The room goes silent. Bellamy is the first to speak. “Madi,” he starts. “I can’t promise you something like that.”

“I’m not asking you to promise me,” she says as the light of anger begins to fade from her eyes. “I’m asking you to keep Clarke safe.” 

Madi straightens and clasps her hands behind her back. “No, I’m telling you as Commander; I need you both to go on the Earth II mission.”

“You can’t order me to do what you want, Madi,” Clarke says, surprised by the sudden change in her daughter. She looks detached as if she stepped behind a door and locked away everything she was feeling.

“No,” she admits, emotion steadily leaving her voice as she continues. “But if I take a vote, you’ll lose, Clarke. You know you’re needed on Earth II. I know it. Bellamy knows it. Staying here would just mean you’ll be around waiting on radio calls.”

Madi doesn’t say  _ again _ , but Clarke hears it in the way her sentence trails off. 

“I want to wake Gaia now,” Madi says, turning around and walking toward the back of the chamber.

“You said you wanted to wait,” Bellamy reminds her.

“No,” Madi corrects. “Clarke said that. I didn’t know what I wanted; I do now. I want to wake Gaia.”

“And if we say no,” Clarke asks. “If we say you need to rest and take the night?”

“Then I’ll wake her on my own,” Madi says, fingers moving on the screen next to Gaia’s pod. “I can rest after I talk to her.”

“Madi, I don’t want you to do this.”

“It’s already done,” she says as the cryopod sighs, compressed air rising from its sides.

In this moment, there’s a part of Clarke that regrets teaching Madi the key sequences for enabling and disabling cryosleep. At the time it had been a concession, one she had made as a gift to her daughter. Madi is six years younger than Clarke was when she took the mantle of leader, and Clarke knew that if she were in her daughter’s place, she’d have wanted to be the one to wake her people when the time came. Now she thinks it was a lapse in judgement; an err she made while trying to adjust to the deference paid to her daughter as she walked the hallways filled with grateful  _ Wonkru _ survivors. 

If she hadn’t have taught her, the chip might have, but at least then she’d have something to blame other than herself. Now, as they wait for Gaia to wake, she can only wish that she’d promised to teach Madi how to use the cryopods later, after they slept for decades. Maybe then there’d be time to dissuade her from her decision. Maybe she’d have even ground to stand on, some way of convincing her daughter to give herself some time to process what she’s lost instead of rushing head first into a situation when her heart is fractured.

_ I walked down this path _ , she thinks as Gaia rises from her pod.  _ I was where you were. This is not the way _ .

Gaia bows after Madi helps her down and smiles gently at her. She acknowledges no one but Madi. “ _ Heda _ ,” she says. “How may I serve you?”

Clarke’s nails press into her palms as Madi informs Gaia of what's happened.

“It’ll be okay,” Bellamy whispers.

“Will it,” she asks, distracted by her thoughts. 

“Yes,” he says and grabs her curled hand. He uncurls her fingers and squeezes them before letting go. “It has to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Feedback is much appreciated. You can find me on tumblr as @asoldierwitch. See you next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback is appreciated. If you'd like to drop me a line, I am @asoldierwitch on tumblr. Happy holidays!


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